Ex-Diplomats Assail Bolton Nomination

Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton’s nomination to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“He is the wrong man for this position,” they said in a letter to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who has scheduled a hearing on Bolton’s nomination for April 7.

The former diplomats include members of the previous six administrations.

Their criticism centered around Bolton’s stand on issues when he was the State Department’s senior arms control official. They said he had an “exceptional record” of opposing U.S. efforts to improve national security through arms control.

The former diplomats also faulted Bolton for his “insistence that the U.N. is valuable only when it directly serves the United States.”